Michael Jocson Physiotherapy is a health and wellness consulting practice in NYC, utilizing physical therapy, corrective exercise, nutrition, life coaching, and energy medicine. This blog is to provide updates for clients/patients and other thoughts to help them heal and evolve.

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Thursday, August 23, 2012

Anyone in New York who has received a referral from their
medical doctor for physical therapy can relate to the following scenario: you
have a high co-pay, anywhere from $15 to $50 for someone in-network, or you pay
out-of-pocket until your $2000-$5000 deductible is met and then you’re
responsible for about 30% of the billed charges. You get evaluated and treated
and see your physical therapist for a total one-to-one time of about 5-15
minutes. The rest of the time is spent waiting with a hot or cold pack along
with some electrical stimulation in which an aide sets you up with on whatever
part of the body you are being treated for. And then you spend the rest of the
time doing exercises in their gym being watched by the aide or even a personal
trainer. You’re scheduled for 2-3 times a week of this for about 4-8 weeks.

The Problem

What you may not be aware of is that the physical therapist
has his/her hands tied behind their back as it is the insurance companies that
dictate what they can or cannot do. Health insurance is a business and as a
business, the bottom line is profits. Every year they make it more difficult
for providers to make a decent living as a therapist by 1) lowering
reimbursement rates, 2) denying charges for treatments after a certain period
of time regardless of medical necessity, 3) increasing the patient’s
responsibility with higher co-pays & deductibles/out-of-pocket expenses,
and 4) did I mention lowering reimbursement rates. It’s as if they change their
rules every year and make it difficult for the provider to collect their
charges. Because of this, the therapist has to over-book patients per hour in
order to pay the rent and make a profit. It is common, if not standard, to
schedule 3-6 patients per therapist an hour (I once worked in a local practice
part-time that routinely scheduled me up to 8 patients an hour). As a patient,
you may get annoyed and/or frustrated that your therapist is unable to spend
more time with you and that your treatment is not improving your condition. In
some practices, the patient may see a different therapist each visit. And of
course, that 5-15 minutes with the therapist is because he/she is seeing 3-4
other patients at the same time as you.

For some patients, this is not an issue and they’re
satisfied with this type of care since it works for them. This blog post is for
those that can see through the ridiculousness and can smell the bullshit of the
whole healthcare chaos/mess. As long as the provider is accepting health
insurance within a distorted, profit-driven health-care industry, they are
slaves to the system and slaves to the insurance companies. In other words,
they don’t mind bending over and getting raped by the insurers.

The Solution

Presently, I wear two hats where I work a few days a week in
an insurance-driven medical practice
providing physical therapy, chiropractic, and limited medical services in
Forest Hills, New York and the other two days of the week, I see private,
cash-paying clients in my home office in Howard Beach, New York. I don’t know
how long I will be in Forest Hills, but for now the way I see things is in
order to change the “game”, one must be within the “game” where Forest Hills is
in the heat of the battlefield and I can at least soften the damage of the
casualties of “war” by giving each patient I see the best treatment I can for
the very limited time I am able to see them without getting sucked into the
stress of the crazy “game”. In my home
office, patients pay me $150/hour and get my full Attention and thus get very
significant results that they may have never achieved in an insurance-driven
practice or if they did, would’ve have taken a much longer time (rare). For
most cases, the insurance-driven practice is sufficient, but there is an
alarmingly increasing number of patients with complex situations that medical
doctors and therapists have no idea what to do with them and they’re sent to
one specialist after the other, each with their own referred diagnostic tests
that still tell them nothing that can help them achieve results. Frustrating?
Obviously. Hopeless? No.

I’m not saying I’m a miracle worker but I can truthfully
tell you what I think may be going on with your situation based upon my thorough
initial assessment which I base your treatment program upon where every session
is an assessment & treatment at the same time and not some “one size fits
all” protocol. I am not enslaved by the insurance companies so I will utilize
whatever treatment modality I see fit for your condition. I’ve been doing this
long enough to confidently state that I can help you feel better within 2-5
treatment sessions for the majority of cases where other more complex cases may
take some more time (and commonly, the “simple” cases begin to unravel more
complexities as one receives attentive care). Some cases, such as
post-operative conditions will take several weeks to months – although, much
more functional and effective results than conventional therapy.

The Bottom Line On Why It’s Worth Seeing Me As A Private
Client:

1) Results. And not just any results but Better Results. And
not just Better Results since there is always Hope, the Greater Awareness you
will learn about your body and your “condition”, is quite simply,…Priceless.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

So it's been exactly one week since I posted about the garbage on the Joseph Addabbo Bridge in Howard Beach towards the Rockaways. I did manage to email Senator Joseph Addabbo, Jr. on a Thursday in which he (or an intern) responded back to me on the following Monday writing that he will get the Department of Transportation and the Sanitation Department to take care of the mess. Of course, I'm not holding my breath waiting for this to happen but this is more of a test to see how fast our city's politicians respond to a quality of life issue such as pollution from a single, yet relatively unknown, tax-paying, law-abiding citizen, and most importantly, a registered VOTER (this would be me of course).

So today I took my baby girl for our morning walk towards the Addabbo Bridge and wasn't surprised to see that much of the same garbage from last week was still there and there was even more new trash dumped as well. Below are the latest pictures I took on my walk on the late morning of Thursday, 8/9/12 around 11 AM:

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Usually on Thursdays, since it's my day off, I get to take care of my two kids and one of the things I enjoy is to take a walk with my 6 month old daughter through the neighborhood I grew up in and love, Howard Beach. Like any other neighborhood, Howard Beach has its bright side to it as well as its dark side. This particular morning I decided to take another route towards the Joseph P. Addabbo Bridge going towards the Rockaways. I haven't been down this route in awhile but the first thing I noticed was the illegal garbage dumping all throughout the sidewalk path. And if that wasn't enough, as I approached the bridge, looking West towards the Jamaica Bay, by the beach underneath the bridge was even more washed up garbage and the scavenger seagulls having a feast with the trash. It reminded me of a scenery I am familiar with whenever I travel to South America and beyond the "cleanliness" of the richer neighborhoods, are the filthy, mountains of garbage in the "slums" or outskirts of the heavily populated cities.

The beach underneath the Addabbo Bridge

Here's a sign of our times where we accumulate more than what we need and it is quite disheartening to see in the neighborhood I was raised in and the place where I choose to raise my children that such disregard for the Land, the very soil in which our houses are built upon, where what we call our Homes, are garbage dump mountains in the making. What went wrong? Does everyone else in Howard Beach aware of this? Does anyone in Howard Beach care?

They should care. We all should care.

Excess garbage breeds excess parasites/scavengers which breeds disease which infiltrates our soils and water supply. Of course, on the micro-scale of things many would reply, "what's the big deal?", considering the city has sewage treatment centers and our water is filtered and treated with fluoride and other chemical treatments to sterilize the water. True, but only a partial truth. What do you think will happen if no one does anything about the accumulating garbage on the beach and surrounding areas by the bridge??? Ever watch the Pixar movie Wall-E where we Humans in the Future have to leave the Earth and live in spaceships because we fucked up our planet and made it into a planetary dumping ground?

Walking North away from the Addabbo Bridge. Someone felt the need to dump an old couch on the sidewalk.

What's really going on? I don't have the answer to that but we can all agree it's about Responsibility. In this case, not taking Responsibility for our actions. Those who choose to dump their garbage wherever they want are disrespecting others who also share the land with them. In fact, no one truly owns Land. That is an illusion. You may be able to "buy" property, but did you Create it? The Truth of the matter is that we are merely Stewards of this Land and as Stewards, it is our Responsibility to take care of it. We may satisfy our egos to think that we own land because we paid money for it but that doesn't necessarily mean we "own" it. It's like the way the Native American Indians, before the Conquistadors "conquered", or "bought", them believed the Land in which they lived was a gift and it was their Responsibility to take care of it in an interdependent relationship. They believed that if you kill the land, you kill your people. And isn't that what's going on with illegal garbage dumping and the neglect to clean it up? Maybe many people are too distracted from their own little "big" worries of Life to even care about this but I think Awareness is a great initial step to effect change. Quite possibly, if more people were aware of the effect of their actions, maybe they wouldn't be so irresponsible and disrespectful towards others and thus themselves.

And finally, what if someone dumped their junk all over your place. How would you feel? The "it's not my problem" attitude is getting a bit thin since some of the shit is hitting the fan much closer to Home....Meditate on that.

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About Me

Michael practices health consulting and runs his practice out of Physique in the Union Square/Greenwich Village area in NYC. His professional background started with physical therapy in 1996 with an emphasis in orthopedic manual physical therapy and evolved through the fields of fitness/wellness and nutrition as a CHEK Practitioner and into the world of energy medicine through shamanism. The reality is that there's no words to actually describe and limit what he does other than consulting others to regain health; with health being referred to as a dynamic wholeness. Michael is available for consultations in person or over the phone as well as for pain management and neuromusculoskeletal rehabilitation services utilizing manual therapy, neurosomatic needling, corrective exercise, and movement therapy. Personal Training services are also available. Fees: $200/hour at Physique, 58 E. 11th St, 4th fl, NY, NY.
Got insurance? Michael may be able to provide physical therapy services as an in-network provider as well as out-of-network depending on your insurance plan. Questions? Just ask at mjocs@aol.com.